3. The Concrete Features of the National Question in Russia and Russia’s Bourgeois-Democratic Transformation

This is how Rosa Luxemburg writes at the beginning of her crusade against Clause 9 of the Marxist programme. In trying to foist on us the interpretation of this clause of the programme as “the merest platitude”, Rosa Luxemburg herself falls into precisely this sin, declaring with amusing boldness that this clause is “obviously equally applicable” to Russia, Germany and so on.

Obviously, we reply, Rosa Luxemburg has decided to make her article a collection of logical errors that could be used for exercises by schoolboys. For Rosa Luxemburg’s tirade is sheer nonsense and a mockery of the historically concrete presentation of the question.

If one interprets the Marxist programme in Marxist fashion, and not in a childish way, it is very easy to grasp that it refers to bourgeois-democratic national movements. That being so, and it undoubtedly is so, it is “obvious” that the programme refers “sweepingly”, as a “platitude” and so on, to all instances of bourgeois-democratic national movements. And it would be no less obvious to Rosa Luxemburg, if she gave it the slightest thought, that our programme refers only to cases where such a movement is actually in existence.

Had she given thought to these obvious considerations, Rosa Luxemburg would easily have seen what nonsense she was talking. In accusing us of uttering a “platitude”, she uses against us the argument that no mention is made of the self-determination of nations in the programmes of countries where there are no bourgeois-democratic national movements. A remarkably clever argument!

A comparison of the political and economic development of various countries, and of their Marxist programmes, is of tremendous importance from the standpoint of Marxism, for there can be no doubt that modern states share a common capitalist nature and are subject to a common law of development. But such a comparison must be drawn sensibly. The elementary condition for it is to make clear whether the historical periods of development of the countries concerned are comparable. For instance, only absolute ignoramuses (such as Prince Y. Trubetskoy in Russkaya Mysl) are capable of “comparing” the agrarian programme of the Russian Marxists with the programmes of Western Europe, since our programme answers the question of a bourgeois-democratic agrarian reform, which is not even mentioned in the Western countries.

The same applies to the national question. In most Western countries it was settled long ago. It is ridiculous to seek in Western programmes an answer to non-existent questions. Rosa Luxemburg has here lost sight of the most important thing: the difference between countries where bourgeois-democratic reforms were completed long ago and those where they have not been completed.

The crux of the matter lies in this difference. Rosa Luxemburg’s complete disregard of it transforms her verbose article into a collection of empty and meaningless platitudes.

In Western continental Europe the period of bourgeois-democratic revolutions embraces a fairly definite span of time, roughly from 1789 to 1871. This was precisely the period of national movements and the creation of national states. When this period drew to a close, Western Europe had been transformed into a settled system of bourgeois states, which, as a general rule, were nationally uniform states. To seek the right to self-determination in the programmes of West European socialists at the present time is therefore to betray one’s ignorance of the ABC of Marxism.

In Eastern Europe and Asia the period of bourgeois-democratic revolutions did not begin until 1905. The revolutions in Russia, Persia, Turkey and China, the Balkan wars: such is the chain of world events of our period in our “Orient”. And only a blind man could fail to see in this chain of events the awakening of a whole series of bourgeois-democratic national movements, striving to create nationally independent and nationally uniform states. It is precisely and solely because Russia and the neighbouring countries are passing through this period that we need a clause in our programme on the right of nations to self-determination.

But let us continue the quotation from Rosa Luxemburg’s article a little further:

Thus, an attempt is made to convince the reader “in particular” by the example of Austria. Let us examine this example from the concrete historical standpoint and see how sound it is.

In the first place, let us pose the fundamental question of the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In Austria it began in 1848 and was over by 1867. Since then, for nearly half a century, a bourgeois constitution has prevailed there, on the whole firmly established, on the basis of which a legal workers’ party is legally functioning.

Therefore, in the internal conditions of Austria’s development (that is, from the standpoint of the development of capitalism in Austria in general, and in its separate nations in particular), there are no factors that produce leaps, one of the possible concomitants of which may be the formation of nationally independent states. By assuming, in her comparison, that Russia is in an analogous position in this respect, Rosa Luxemburg not only makes a fundamentally wrong and anti-historical assumption, but also involuntarily slips into Liquidationism.

Secondly, of particularly great importance for the question that concerns us is the entirely different relation between the nationalities in Austria and in Russia. Not only was Austria for a long time a state in which the Germans predominated, but the Austrian Germans laid claim to hegemony in the German nation as a whole. This “claim”, as Rosa Luxemburg (who is supposedly so averse to platitudes, stereotypes, abstractions…) may perhaps be kind enough to remember, was shattered in the war of 1866. The dominant nation in Austria, the German, found itself outside the bounds of the independent German state that was finally formed in 1871. On the other hand, the attempt of the Hungarians to create an independent national state had already collapsed in 1849 under the blows of the Russian serf army.

A very peculiar situation was thus created: a gravitation on the part of the Hungarians, and then of the Czechs, not towards separation from Austria but, on the contrary, towards preserving Austria’s integrity, precisely in the interests of national independence, which might have been completely crushed by more rapacious and powerful neighbours! Owing to this peculiar situation Austria assumed the form of a state with two centres (dualist), and is now being transformed into one with three centres (trialist: Germans, Hungarians, Slavs).

Is there anything like this in Russia? Is there in our country a gravitation of the “subject peoples” towards union with the Great Russians in face of the danger of worse national oppression?

One need only pose this question in order to see that the comparison between Russia and Austria on the question of the self-determination of nations is senseless, stereotyped and ignorant.

The peculiar conditions of Russia with regard to the national question are just the reverse of those we saw in Austria. Russia is a state with a single national centre, the Great Russian. The Great Russians occupy a vast unbroken territory and number about 70 million. The special features of this national state are, firstly, that the “subject peoples” (who make up the majority of the entire population, 57 per cent) inhabit precisely the border regions; secondly, that the oppression of these subject peoples is much stronger than in the neighbouring states (and not even in the European states alone); thirdly, that in a number of cases the oppressed nationalities living in the border regions have compatriots across the border who enjoy greater national independence (suffice it to mention, along the western and southern frontiers of the state alone, the Finns, Swedes, Poles, Ukrainians and Rumanians); fourthly, that the development of capitalism and the general level of culture are often higher in the “subject” border regions than in the centre of the state. Lastly, it is precisely in the neighbouring Asian states that we see a period of bourgeois revolutions and national movements beginning, movements that partly embrace kindred nationalities within the borders of Russia.

Thus it is precisely the concrete historical features of the national question in Russia that make recognition of the right of nations to self-determination especially urgent in our country in the present period.

Incidentally, even from the purely factual angle, Rosa Luxemburg’s assertion that the programme of the Austrian Social-Democrats does not contain recognition of the right of nations to self-determination is wrong. We need only open the minutes of the Brünn Congress, which adopted the national programme, to find there statements by the Ruthenian Social-Democrat Hankiewicz on behalf of the entire Ukrainian (Ruthenian) delegation (p. 85 of the minutes) and by the Polish Social-Democrat Reger on behalf of the entire Polish delegation (p. 108), to the effect that the Austrian Social-Democrats of both these nations include among their aims the striving for the national unity, freedom and independence of their peoples. Hence, while the Austrian Social-Democrats do not directly put forward the right of nations to self-determination in their programme, they are quite reconciled to the demand for national independence being put forward by sections of the party. In effect, of course, this means recognising the right of nations to self-determination! Rosa Luxemburg’s reference to Austria thus speaks against Rosa Luxemburg in every respect.